


no rest for the wicked

by orphan_account



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, but like, crowley yells at plants to cope, lots of allusions to fire, without much comfort tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 11:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20994224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: crowley thinks about falling and fire and love that he doesn't deserve





	no rest for the wicked

**Author's Note:**

> LISTEN IDK WHAT THIS IS REALLY it's just a hot ass mess uwu but whatever. also i'm jewish so some choices were made whOop !

Think about fire.

Think about the way it eats; it bares gleaming canines, gnashing like a rabid dog going in for the final bite on the rabbit that attempted to escape. Yet, all the same, it is slow. A torturous kind of gnawing that is felt deep within the marrow of bone, the kind that sends shivers up spines in fear or pain or pleasure or maybe all three. It’s a caress all the same, it’s a cautiously planned and carefully executed waltz between a mother and a son. There’s no joy in this dance like a gentleman’s club gavotte, it wasn’t chosen nor asked for nor craved. It was a forced hand.

It is as old as time, a slow dip of son into the harsh light while asthmatic lungs beg for fresh air. Unpolluted oxygen. An inherently human trait. The smouldering ash infiltrating bronchial tubes, burying itself beneath digging fingernails and between clenched teeth, gritted like sandpaper. The smell of smoke weaving itself through every atom of clothing, hiding in the crevices of skin and the dips of pores.

Fire. The thing nobody should ever stand too close to-- but the son couldn’t help it, the warmth is so inviting and the way that the flames perform their dance was so tantalizing. He wanted to touch, just once, just to see what it felt like. It pulls you in but never spits you back out, at least not in the way those who love you (supposedly) remember you being. When you live through fire you change, morph into something you don’t ever remember being.

The physical signs of the charring may dissipate over time but the anguish sticks. The mentality festers and bleeds like an uncovered wound and it becomes that much easier for them to get under your skin. To taint. To criticize until you’re broken down to your most base, trainable form. To be manipulated further by things that are merely fire incarnate, tearing into you and reopening your wounds with their words.

“You’re unforgivable.”

“Unworthy of second chances.”

“Sick.”

“Vindictive.”

“Selfish.”

“Pathetic excuse.”

“You,” said the voice that buzzed around his head, “are so polluted by malice that you disgust the being that created you and invented loving.”

Think about love.

Think about the way it wraps around like a large blanket, holding in warmth and security. How it burns in a chest like fire, the way it courses through his veins and kisses gently on capillaries. How in all the same ways it burns and chews and tears into skin, muscle and bone.

The chosen ballet, the slow dip into ambient lighting in the great outdoors. The air freshened by the trees, the cicada’s singing, fire crackling nearby but not near enough to singe. Just close enough to leave a tingle of warmth along skin, settling arm hairs down into relaxation while a blush settles in.

Crowley knew fire.

He was all too familiar with its many shapes and forms, the way it could slither in to take without detection until it was too late to stop it, Crowley understood fire. He respected it and feared it and had nightmares completely drenched in it. If he could sweat he’d be soaked, if he was human his shirt would be stuck to his back with a vacuum seal of dampness. The way he panted, however, in it’s sharp gasping intake of air, made him seem human deep down to his innermost core. As if he needed to breathe in order to continue existing.

He turned from laying on his back to lying on his side, a slow rotation on his shaking joints. Pulling his knees to his chest, shivering beneath the duvet, Crowley swore. Tears pricked in his eyes and he let them fall, a burning sensation along his sinuses as they trickled along his cheeks. He stared blankly at his bedroom wall: white. Oh how he missed it at the corners of his vision, the cleanliness of radiating pallor. The guilt eats at him akin to flames in the way it licks so when Crowley blinks the walls are a dark cool grey. He can’t stand to see the reminders of the life behind him now but he imagined someone would notice if stars started going missing.

Big, burning spheres of fire and gas, turning and churning in on themselves just waiting to combust. Who else to hang things so volatile? Who could do the job just right other than a truly evil thing, just as volatile as the stars themselves? A sick foreshadowing that he would burn up just like those stars. Nebula. Hanging so pretty until one wrong move and suddenly: BOOM.

Crowley doesn’t notice his body moving until his feet are on the cold wooden floor of the bedroom, the chill pushing through his socks and bringing him down from the universe above, forcing him through the atmosphere surrounding Earth. The cold snaps him out of burning memories. He stands, walking into the hall and shuffling along without his usual swing of hips, black tank top and boxers keeping him half decent. He can feel the tears crusting on his cheeks.

Moving down the hall he can already hear the plants’ leaves rustling in fear of his entry, so he moves a little faster, lifts his head a little higher, paints a scowl on his expression. The sorrow and mourning turn to rage, his hands balling into fists as the sway of hips returns. He’ll punish them, he’ll scream and shout, he’ll tell them everything they are doing wrong. Crowley will put the fear of himself into them, they will cower when he is near for he is evil,  _ he  _ is fire incarnate. He will burn them to the ground before he allows a mistake.

\---

“Good morning, worthless compost,” Crowley says, grabbing the mister in one hand and placing the other on his hip. He gives all of the plants a once over and zeroes in on a hole in one of the plants’ leaves.

He saunters over, malice laced into his tone like venom, his tongue forking as if responding to the idea of being venomous again. “What’s this, hmm? WHAT. IS. THIS.” Grabbing the leaf he pulls it from the stem, holding it up to the greenhouse lighting. It’s a beautifully vibrant green and yet the tiniest hole is more than enough for Crowley to consider it a failure, a pathetic excuse for a plant. Useless. Disgusting. “You are so  _ polluted _ that you disgust me, the thing that  _ raised you _ , the thing whose only job is to see you thrive and facilitate that. You are a pathetic waste of space and time.”

He grabs the pot, looking at the other shaking leaves. A small grin creeps onto his face and he buries it down, his eyebrows furrowed deeper as he continues berating the plants. “I thought maybe, just maybe, you all would have understood the first time I brought it up but clearly you’re all  _ too fucking stupid _ to LISTEN. I will say this once more: if you fail me you will cease to exist in my eyes, you will die slowly and painfully. You. Will. Burn.”

The pot in his hand grows hot as the plant begins to go up in smoke, the fire dangerously close to his person but he doesn’t seem to care. His face has been wiped blank of emotion, a man numbed. The pot falls to the ground with an unceremonious thump, ashes spilling and his face flickers for a moment. He wonders if that’s what he looked like after the fall, just a rotten pile of ash dumped like it was nothing by God herself. Snapping his fingers the mess vanishes, leaving nothing but Crowley and his other plants alone in the room. He heads to the door, grabbing the door frame with one hand as if to steady himself: “Don’t fail me next time, understood?”

When he gets no response, no fearful rustling of leaves he whips around, breath heaving. “I SAID:  _ DON’T FAIL ME NEXT TIME, UNDERSTOOD _ ?” The shuddering of foliage send a spark of satiation through him, he exits to the music of their fear.

\---

His stride begins slowing when he’s sure he’s a safe enough distance that they won’t notice the way he falls-- literally and figuratively. His knees hit the floor with a hard THUD and a sob rips itself from his throat. He doesn’t understand, he wished he did, he’s desperate to understand. Why him? He was but a leaf with a small hole. The tiniest mistake among such gorgeous forest, a looming army of perfection- sequoias. Stronger than him, bigger than him, older than him. Better. All his time hanging stars, feeling unburdened love, shining under Her presence-- for what?

“FOR WHAT?” He screams, slamming the side of his fist against the wall. “HUH? I know you can hear me, Ms Omnipotent, oh Lord Almighty, blessed be those who rejoice in Her presence, Adonai Elohim. Infallible God, ha! Well, I know better than that! The Jews know better than that and yet somehow-- some  _ god damned  _ way how --people still listen to your- your  _ bullshit _ .”

Crowley’s throat feels raw and torn, he’s violently depressed, he’s enraged at the idea of Her playing the blind poker game in which nobody knows the rules. He’s exhausted by the Earth being a Libra. “You make rules and pick and choose who gets to fly under your radar, you have notes sent to Angels who break your rules yet I get cast out-  _ banished _ from my home! My entire existence swept out from underneath my feet.”

The anger, the harrowing sadness weighing down and somewhere deep inside of him something breaks, spilling its contents inside his gut and he resists the urge to throw up. The burning inside of him all-encompassing, the way holy water is supposed to burn, as if his insides are melting away leaving his organs a mess of bloody goop-- not that he necessarily needed organs per se but holy water wasn’t just a mangler, it was a killer of beings like Crowley. Of vile demons like Crowley. Of hated creatures with horns and tails and pitchforks, of toad eyes and frogs on heads, of the buzzing of flies, the glowing gold of snake eyes. The same eyes that blinked back tears, that glowered at his own reflection on the waxed floor.

He stood slowly, the burning still churning in his stomach and his brain drifted away from the pain as if trying to separate entirely. Drifted towards things demons didn’t deserve: love, kindness, a stable home, a being who cared for him. The kind of arms that held steadfast, hands worn from thousands of years of use but still somehow gentle. Eyes that only ever reflected to Crowley his true self, outside of Heaven and Hell, of God and Satan, of Gabriel and Beelzebub. Yet, as per usual, Crowley, with some kind of self-destructive streak flowing through his veins, walked to his office and fell into the chair unceremoniously. He grabbed the phone and dialled. It rang. And rang. And rang. And--

“A. Z. Fell and Company’s Bookshop, A. Z. Fell speaking,” the voice on the other end of the line said, clearly having picked up a screenless phone that just didn’t have the capability of caller identification.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, not sure of the tone in which the name was spoken. There was an edge to it, and a whimper. The name felt foreign on his tongue, the way the word “fuck” felt on the tongue of a ten-year-old who had been told their whole life that to swear is to sin and to sin is to be sent to Hell.

He heard a slight gasp and a snap of fingers, the call of THE STORE IS CLOSED NOW, I IMPLORE YOU ALL TO LEAVE AT ONCE. Then, with a tonality of adoration, “oh, Crowley, my dear, perfect timing I was just closing the store! What have you phoning in the stead of just sauntering in?”

Crowley hadn’t thought this far ahead, usually didn’t, but now he wished he had because unfiltered he didn’t care about the reaction to his words. “Tell me I am evil,” he demanded, “tell me how disgustingly unforgivably vile I am, Aziraphale, how despicable. How I am a foul fiend, I kill birds for fun, I find joy in misery…” The demanding tone slipped, leaving him open without a shield.

“Tell me… angel, remind me who I am.”

\---

The other end of the phone is maddeningly silent. Crowley’s throat tastes of pennies and he is gasping for air. The phone is shattered, glass cutting into his palm. For a moment there is quiet.

Solace.

His palm stings and he releases his grip, knuckles creaking with effort.

It’s not that he is calm, no, a man-shaped thing in his position could never be genuinely calm. He is calm in the way some people are after trauma; calm in the way that comes after your lip splits on the airbag of your car, the way that seeps into your bones when you get a phone call you’d rather have not received, the way that clouds your head. The numbness that was mistaken for leisure. He is blissed out on the high of screaming, crying and bleeding.

There’s a knock at the door.


End file.
